Pope Benedict's German roots

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Pope Benedict's legacy and controversies

Certainly his controversial wording about Islam in his speech at Regensburg in 2006 was an example of a scholar pope unable to reach a mass audience, especially when compared to the media maestro John Paul II.

All sorts of internal curial squabbling marked what was supposed to be a Roman housecleaning by a German administrator who didn't turn out to be up to that task.

This pope will go down in history in the line of scholar popes more interested in high-end theology than modern evangelism.

But that should not be seen as a criticism even though anyone elected after the superstar John Paul II was destined -- perhaps doomed -- to seem smaller compared to such a giant.

All eras of church histories have seen different popes for different times, so perhaps what the church needed was a quiet pope after a boisterous papacy.

Yet the introverted pope who played Mozart seemed unable to hit the right note when it came to addressing the major issue of the last decade: The priest sex abuse scandal and the related problem of bishops who protected predators. This makes for a decidedly mixed verdict -- at least today.

The precedents to his surprise move are few.The first pope to resign was Pontian, in 235, when Christianity was still an illegal religion in the Roman Empire. He was deported from Rome to Sardinia to a prison known for its brutality. Since he knew he would die there, he resigned so a successor would be in place.

The most famous resignation is Celestine V in 1294. A hermit, totally unsuited to the politics of the medieval papal court, he resigned after less than half a year in office. Dante famously put Celestine at the gates of hell for his "great refusal" or, in Italian, il gran rifiuto.

So why is Pope Benedict resigning?

It seems, like Celestine V and maybe even Paul VI, that Benedict was never quite comfortable as pope.

It could be that this very traditional man is setting a helpful precedent for modern medical times, and making papal resignations easier in the future due to ill health. Benedict may have simply come to the moment where he realized he couldn't do the job any more.

Unlike John Paul II, who decided to stay in the job, Benedict is offering a different model. Pope Benedict will surely retire quietly to a Benedictine monastery to keep writing, the life he imagined for himself before his election.